News Watch (September 26, 2026)
Investigation Report on Misconduct regarding Design Basis Seismic Ground Motions at Hamaoka Nuke
On September 14, Chubu Electric Power Co. released a report from its Special Investigative Committee regarding “inappropriate practices” in formulating the design basis seismic ground motions for the Hamaoka Nuclear Power Station. At a press conference on the same day, Chubu Electric Power announced that it would withdraw its application for restarting the nuke, resubmitting it later after more preparations. This is a sneaky way to avoid having its application rejected.
CNIC has posted a statement on this that can be read here: cnic.jp/english/?p=9413
Kanden and Tohoku Electric Power to Participate in Mutsu Spent Fuel Interim Storage
Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) and the Japan Atomic Power Co. (JAPC) reported to Mutsu City and Aomori Prefecture on September 18 on their latest plans for the spent fuel storage facility at Recyclable-Fuel Storage Company (RFS), a company they had jointly established. They are planning to accept spent fuel from Kansai Electric Power Company (Kanden) and Tohoku Electric Power Co. into their storage facility, which until now had limited its plans to the spent fuel from its two funding companies. RFS’s first building, with a capacity of 3000 tons uranium, began accepting spent fuel from September 2024, but it became clear that the spent fuel from TEPCO and JAPC by itself would never reach RFS’s initially planned capacity of 5000 tons uranium in final storage across two buildings Mutsu City, which was levying a tax on storage, was faced with decreasing tax revenues, and was therefore requesting 5000 tons uranium to be stored there as TEPCO and JAPC had promised. It seems that this was convenient for Kanden in the struggle it was facing, which was to find a reliable way to implement its plans to ship spent fuel outside Fukui Prefecture, where its nuclear power plants are sited.
The new plan is to accept 3500 tons from TEPCO, 900 tons from JAPC, 500 tons from Kanden and 100 tons from Tohoku Electric Power Co., securing a total of 5000 tons.
Under these new plans, RFS is advancing the date when it will start accepting shipments into its second building from the early 2040s to the year 2040 and the date when all spent fuel shipments have been completed from the start of the 2090s to the latter half of the 2080s. Still, this assumes that the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant will begin operating in FY2027. Estimations of the number of TEPCO’s nuclear power reactors expected to be operating range from three to nine. Thus the realization of these plans is doubtful.
National Government Continues Entreaties for Literature Surveys toward Selecting High-level Radioactive Waste Disposal Sites
Literature surveys, which constitute the first step toward selection of high-level radioactive waste storage sites in Japan, initially required municipalities to apply for them on their own initiative before they could get underway. Too few municipalities were responding to these calls, however, so now Japan’s government is taking the initiative to propose candidates. Literature surveys have been initiated after Suttsu Town in Hokkaido submitted its application in 2020, with Kamoenai Village agreeing the same year to these entreaties, followed by Genkai Town in Saga Prefecture, Kyushu, in 2024.
The government approached Ogasawara Village (Pacific islands administered by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government) in March 2026 and Hitachi-Omiya City in September to accept a literature survey. Ogasawara Village’s mayor has accepted this proposal, and Hitachi-Omiya’s is expected to. (The acceptance was announced after this article was written, on September 30.)
Nevertheless, it is difficult to say how seriously the government viewed these municipalities as potential sites when making the proposals. Regarding the survey site in Ogasawara Village, which is to be Minamitorishima Island, please see CNIC’s statement here: cnic.jp/english/?p=8967, cnic.jp/english/?p=9106
Hitachi-Omiya City has a population of about 35,000 and is located near population centers such as Mito City, with a population of about 265,000. It sits inland in Ibaraki Prefecture, requiring the waste to be transported through several towns and cities to reach it. It is also adjacent to Tochigi Prefecture. The area experiences frequent earthquakes.
Lax Security at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuke
A succession of scandals occurred at TEPCO’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Station from 2020 to 2021 regarding its nuclear material protection system. It came to light that someone using another person’s ID card had entered the central control room, that the intrusion detection equipment had malfunctioned, and that moreover this malfunction had been left unaddressed. Thus, on April 14, 2021, Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) prohibited the transference of nuclear fuel at the plant (essentially prohibiting its restart). Later, even though more scandals ensued, this prohibition was lifted, with the unsurprising result that the scandals continued occurring.
TEPCO announced on August 7 this year, that earlier in the year, on February 18, a worker had used his ID card to help a coworker who had forgotten his own ID card in the central control room and was trapped within the ingress/egress gate’s double doors. He helped the trapped worker get out by holding his own card outside the gate. The system had been designed to prevent egress using a different person’s card, but it malfunctioned and failed to indicate the error. It is said that system malfunctions had been occurring frequently during the preceding 10 years, but no countermeasures had been taken. This was really just another repetition of previous incidents.
What’s even more amazing is that according to TEPCO, in looking into the causes and background factors, “Operators A and B showed a lack of awareness that their personal ID cards could be used for no one except the card’s actual owner.” They had the impression that those were mere keys for opening and closing the gate. Thus as a measure to prevent recurrences, TEPCO simply “repeated the education session for all operators on how to handle the ID cards (explaining that the ID cards can only be used for the card’s owner).”
“The Nuclear Security Expert Evaluation Committee” established by TEPCO with external experts met on September 17 and conducted an on-site investigation. At a press conference afterwards, Committee Chairman Itabashi Isao (who directs the Council for Public Policy and heads its research center) noted, “A nuclear security mindset has yet to take root.” He said he was calling on TEPCO to educate its young employees thoroughly.
It is not a “nuclear security mindset” that has yet to take root, but common sense itself. In fact, rather, it is a manifestation of Japan’s actual “nuclear security mindset.”
